Johannes Stein

@jmstein.bsky.social

Group Leader at Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics Studying genome organization with quantitative super-resolution microscopy https://www.molgen.mpg.de/stein-lab

Now out from Bintu lab: compaction following transient KRAB recruitment tracks long-term epigenetic memory. But K9me3 decays after KRAB release and is replaced by DNA methylation. Does compaction help maintain K9me3, or slow its loss enough to facilitate the handoff to DNAme? tinyurl.com/ycay4mrh

Single-cell chromatin state transitions during epigenetic memory formation

Large-scale chromatin compaction quantitatively predicts the percentage of cells with durable epigenetic memory of gene silencing.

tinyurl.com

Out now in Science! Our study challenges long-standing assumptions about transcription factor specificity in eukaryotes. Novel single-molecule measurements of TF behavior in living cells reveal an independence of locus-specific binding from DNA sequence recognition.🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Unstructured transcription factor interactions enable emergent specificity

How intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) shape chromatin binding and nuclear organization of transcription factors (TFs) remains unclear. We used proximity-assisted photoactivation (PAPA), a single...

science.org

Today, it was Lisa's turn to defend her PhD thesis and she did an absolutely fantastic job 😍 Especially going into full structure of the RNA Pol2 catalytic core and explaining the mutants. It was an outstanding discussion! I am really proud of her performance today 🥹

Bild

Excited to share our latest work in Molecular Cell: www.cell.com/molecular-ce... We show that PRC1 condensates exclude SWI/SNF from chromatin, revealing a physical mechanism for how opposing regulators compete to control gene expression. Huge thanks to all collaborators and mentors!

Mutual antagonism between PRC1 condensates and SWI/SNF in chromatin regulation

Niekamp et al. show that biomolecular condensates formed by Polycomb repressive complexes can physically restrict access of the activating remodeler SWI/SNF to chromatin. Establishing this barrier dep...

cell.com

Johannes Stein's new lab at the MPIMG will use microscopy to study the organization of the genome at a molecular level. We talked to him about how, despite being a trained physicist, he ended up in biology, the potential of his research and the power of interdisciplinary teams. @jmstein.bsky.social

A nanoscopic look at gene regulation

Johannes Stein joined the MPIMG in 2025. His lab will use state-of-the-art microscopy techniques to examine the organisation of the genome at a molecular level. We talked to him about how, despite bei...

molgen.mpg.de

Please spread the word: the Structural Studies Division @mrclmb.bsky.social is looking for a new tenure-track, independent group leader with an exciting plan in any area of Structural (Molecular & Cell) biology, in discovery biology and/or methods development. 🥳 mrc.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...

Research Group Leader Tenure Track - Structural Studies - LMB 2775 - Medical Research Council

Location: Cambridge. Vacancy: Research Group Leader Tenure Track - Structural Studies - LMB 2775. Closing Date: 16/03/2026, 23:55

mrc.tal.net

Rewrote my Python bioformats wrapper (from aicsimageio/bioio) as a standalone package: - fully bootstrapped Java setup (just pip install) - lazy, repeatably-indexable Array object - fully spec-compliant OME-Zarr group obj. - xarray/dask exports github.com/imaging-form... v0.0.rc1 on PyPI

GitHub - imaging-formats/bffile: Modern Bio-Formats wrapper with clean lazy Python API

Modern Bio-Formats wrapper with clean lazy Python API - imaging-formats/bffile

github.com

New paper alert!🤩Super proud that our story led by superstar postdocs @liujinghui.bsky.social and @nerlielisa.bsky.social is finally out! We found how electrical signals are key for promoting organ regenerative growth!!! A thread 🧵https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec0687

Injury-induced electrochemical coupling triggers organ growth

Organ repair and growth rely on coupling tissue-wide membrane depolarization with intracellular proliferative signaling.

science.org

Great to see our Science Review on emerging multiplexed single-molecule methods that use libraries to link sequence to dynamics. A fun collaborative writing project! From sequence to function: Bridging single-molecule kinetics and molecular diversity | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

From sequence to function: Bridging single-molecule kinetics and molecular diversity

Biological function is fundamentally determined by nucleic acid and protein sequence. Beyond encoding genetic information, nucleic acids also display complex physicochemical parameters that shape stru...

science.org

Nuclear speckle associated RRM-containing proteins are block copolymers. They make size-limited, ordered microphases, tens of nm in size comprising tens of molecules. Speckles are likely clusters or emulsions of distinct microphases and not macrophases www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nuclear speckle proteins form intrinsic and MALAT1-dependent microphases

Pre-mRNA processing components in nuclear speckles encompass one or more folded RNA recognition motifs (RRMs) and disordered regions with specific seq…

sciencedirect.com